We Begin as We End
by Ryeloza
Summary: They have so many beginnings and endings, but it all comes back to love. Patty/Sam.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Charmed_.

**A/n: **I really hope this holds the breaks because it will be really convoluted without them. If it doesn't I will try to correct it.

This is a request story for the wonderful **Princess Pinky**, who I think has been waiting for me to write Patty/Sam for much, much too long. Thanks for being so patient, and for all of the lovely reviews you've left me over the years. I really hope you, and everyone else reading, enjoys this one. As always, I am happy to add requests to my list.

Also, randomly, is Sam really not a character choice in the list? That makes me so sad.

_Katie_

**We Begin as We End**

a story by **Ryeloza**

In the end…

In the end…

In the end…

There was death.

Sam had roamed the earth for one hundred and sixty-six years; he knew that if there was one constant true about the human race it was that every person died. This had been his one comfort for the past twenty-two years.

This had been his torture.

* * *

In the beginning, he spent years reconciling himself to the idea that she was unavailable.

She was married, for one.

It was against the rules, for another.

He used these two arguments to combat one another. Some days when he stood close enough he could smell the citrusy scent of her shampoo he'd think, _Never mind that she's married, she's so unhappy._ Then she'd say something to remind him that he was there to talk about a demon and he'd remember his place.

Other days they'd sit on her fire escape and drink lemonade while she talked about long forgotten dreams of girlhood and he'd think, _We're meant to be. What's the worst they could do?_ And then she would mention Victor and he'd remember that she _wasn't his_.

Never would be.

One day he loved her enough that he overcame both of these obstacles.

* * *

In the end, he took her to a quiet little cemetery in rural Virginia and they stood in the snow with linked arms, staring at his brother's grave. It was appropriate, really, that they ended there. He had lost Matthew over one hundred years previously but his death was still the sharpest, still the clearest in his mind. Hundreds of miles south, on an entirely different battlefield, Sam had felt the gunshot that claimed Matthew in his gut and he had known.

Searing, pinching, enflaming, engulfing, all-encompassing pain and numbness and grief combined.

_I love you, Sam. I'll always love you. But this isn't working. Every time I look at you I think of…I'm sorry._

And he understood because their grief for their daughter was shared; it bound them together as much as it tore them apart.

They kissed in the cold February snow and that was the end.

* * *

In the beginning, Patty kissed him for any of a dozen different reasons that he would never know for sure.

Loneliness…her divorce had just been finalized.

Gratefulness…he had been there for her—babysitter, friend, shoulder to cry on.

Pity…she knew how much he loved her.

Love…?

He had spent years reading Patty like a book. One press of her warm mouth to his and he had no idea what she thought or felt or wanted.

It was heaven.

* * *

In the end, he held his newborn daughter in his arms and wept.

* * *

In the beginning, there were secret rendezvous' in closets—passionate moments in which he felt that he had finally moved on to the glory of the afterlife. There were quiet moments on the couch while the girls were in school. There were drives to the beach and picnics in the park and a hundred different moments in which he loved her.

* * *

In the end, he decided to give up everything for her. He went to her house with the words _I choose you, Patty_. _It's always been you_ on his lips. He went to her house with hope in his heart and a sad bouquet of daises he had picked and wanted to tell her that he was hers. That somehow they would get their daughter back. That somehow they would fix everything.

Because he loved her.

And with a disdainful eye and an appraising look, Penny told him that she'd gone to the lake. That she'd gone after the water demon.

And he _knew_, just as he'd known with his brother.

And it was too late.

* * *

In the beginning, he loved her.

* * *

In the end, he loved her.


End file.
